Negative Concord in Child African American English: Implications for Specific Language Impairment D'jaris Coles-White
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University of Massachusetts Amherst ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst Laying the groundwork for the DELV (Precursor NIH Working Groups on African American English literature, dissertations, joint work of the Working (AAE) Groups prior to the conceptualization of the DELV) 2004 Negative concord in child African American English: Implications for Specific Language Impairment D'Jaris Coles-White Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.umass.edu/aae_groundwork Negative Concord in Child African American English: Implications for Specific Language Impairment D’Jaris Coles-White Wayne State University, In this study, African American English (AAE)-speaking children’s comprehension Detroit, MI of 2 different types of double negative sentences was examined and contrasted with that of a comparison group of Standard American English (SAE)-speaking children. The first type of double negative, negative concord, involves 2 negative elements in a sentence that are interpreted together as single negation. The second type of double negative, called true double negation, involves 2 negatives that are interpreted as independent negatives. A cross-sectional cohort of 61 (35 AAE, 26 SAE) typically developing children ranging in age from 5;2 (years;months) to 7;11 participated. The children responded to story- based grammatical judgment tasks that required them to differentiate between negative concord and true double negation. Results revealed no statistically significant differences between AAE- and SAE-speaking children in the way they interpreted negative concord and true double negation. However, there were significantly more correct responses to negative concord sentences across combined groups. In particular, the older children (i.e., 7-year-olds) produced more correct responses to negative concord than did the younger group (i.e., 5-year-olds). Explanations for these findings are framed in terms of children’s knowledge about sentences with 2 negatives, the constraints affecting the interpretation of 2 negatives that include negative concord, and the clinical importance of negative concord for assessing specific language impairment in child AAE speakers. KEY WORDS: negation, African American English, linguistic differences, language comprehension, negative concord istorically, studies of African American English (AAE) have fo- cused on identifying and describing the features of the dialect. H Only recently have some studies shifted from description to ex- planation, using linguistic theory to account for specific feature func- tion and constraints underlying the grammar (Coles, 1998; Green, 1993; Jackson, 1998; Jackson et al., 1996; Johnson, 2001; Mufwene, Rickford, Bailey, & Baugh, 1998; Sells, Rickford, & Wasow, 1996). This shift to- ward examining the underlying mechanisms has been instrumental in moving the study of dialect forward to include studies that are clini- cally applicable for identifying language impairments (Craig & Wash- ington, 1994; McGregor, Williams, Hearst, & Johnson, 1997; Oetting & McDonald, 2001; Seymour, Bland-Stewart, & Green, 1998; Stockman, 1996; Washington, 1996). These recent investigations have addressed the challenges of differentiating typically developing AAE speakers from those who use AAE and have specific language impairment (SLI), and 212 Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research • Vol. 47 • 212–222 • February 2004 • ©American Speech-Language-Hearing Association 1092-4388/04/4701-0212 Downloaded from: https://pubs.asha.org University of Massachusetts on 41/27/2019, Terms of Use: https://pubs.asha.org/pubs/rights_and_permissions they have contributed to our knowledge base concern- concord, a clause-level syntactic construction with some ing the nature of AAE grammar. potential as a clinical marker of SLI in child AAE speak- In order to devise a truly comprehensive theory of ers. Clause-level syntactic processes such as negative SLI that takes into account AAE child speakers, the un- concord should be better linguistic markers for identi- derlying mechanisms of AAE morphology and syntax fying SLI in AAE-speaking children than morphologi- must be rigorously examined in both receptive and ex- cal markers, which are used for identifying SLI in Stan- pressive domains. A theory of SLI depends on develop- dard English dialects, because clause-level syntactic ing foundational knowledge about normal processes markers do not contrast with SAE. Accordingly, children used by child speakers and determining how these pro- may have an intuitive linguistic knowledge about nega- cesses are changed by children with SLI. For many Af- tive concord because it is a noncontrastive feature with rican American children this involves understanding SAE found in many early grammars (Bellugi, 1967; the processes underlying the use of major linguistic fea- Klima & Bellugi, 1973; Stokes, 1976), and by implica- tures of AAE, which may be contrastive or noncontras- tion its interpretation should be largely unaffected by tive with Standard American English (SAE) (Seymour AAE grammar. et al., 1998). Negative concord is a linguistic phenomenon that Contrastive features of AAE are those considered occurs in many standard and nonstandard dialects of to be different from the features that characterize SAE, languages. Negative concord is a complex, clause-level such as aspectual be (i.e., “Shaq be playin basketball”), syntactic process and is part of the negation system that where there is no interpretable complement or counter- many African American children develop in the acquisi- part in SAE. Those features that are noncontrastive have tion of AAE grammar. Negative concord may be defined similar or matching constituents with SAE, such as as the expression of two negative elements in a syntac- negative concord. For example, negative indefinite no, tic environment or sentence where they are in agree- when used in a negative sentence (i.e., “He don’t like no ment and, therefore, are interpreted together as a single sports”), does have an interpretable counterpart in SAE negation (Martin, 1992). The two negatives are not in- (i.e., “He doesn’t like any sports”). Seymour et al. (1998) terpreted separately as truly independent negatives (i.e., indicated that a focus solely on AAE features that are true double negation), but are dependent on each other contrastive with SAE may be problematic diagnostically, for a single negative reading. Example 1 illustrates nega- because on the surface contrastive features may appear tive concord and a true double negative sentence, where to be very similar to those features that characterize the negatives are interpreted independently. language impairment. However, a focus on noncontras- Example 1. tive features with SAE may protect against perceiving a. “He don’t have no friends” (“He doesn’t language difference (i.e., AAE) as language impairment have any friends” or “He has no friends”) and may help to establish what is vitally important for b. “He don’t like going there with no friends” characterizing language impairment, particularly with (“He doesn’t like going there without AAE-speaking children. friends”) Although some work has begun to contribute to our In 1a, both of the negatives are interpreted as a single understanding of the production of AAE features by chil- negation, thus a negative concord reading. However, in dren (e.g., Haynes & Moran, 1989; Hyter, 1996; Pollock 1b, the negative that occurs in the phrase “with no et al., 1998; Stockman & Vaughn-Cooke, 1992; Wash- friends” is interpreted independently of the negative ington & Craig, 1994) and the processes underlying these auxiliary don’t, which occurs earlier in the sentence and productions (Green, 1993), comprehension has been is thereby considered true double negation. largely ignored for its potential to inform us of what AAE speaking children know about language. Knowing that In developing grammars, negative concord is be- a child produces a sentence type does not necessarily lieved to share certain properties with interrogatives mean the child will fully comprehend the same sentence, under a concept of movement, which is essentially a particularly if it is heard without the context of familiar formal, linguistic explanation for how these two syn- routines and nonlinguistic cues (Miller & Paul, 1995, as tactic constructions are formulated in the deep struc- cited in Paul, 2001). ture (Haegeman, 1995; Martin, 1992; Progovac, 1994). Specifically, both constructions, negative concord and The purpose of this investigation was to contribute wh- questions, share or obey similar restrictions on syn- important, new information to this knowledge base by tactic contexts. These contextual restrictions have an examining comprehension of one major feature of child effect on the establishment of dependent relationships grammar, negation, by young typically developing AAE- between syntactic elements and ultimately influence speaking children. More specifically, this investigation the interpretation of negative concord sentences and examined and described the comprehension of negative Coles-White: Negative Concord in Child African American English 213 Downloaded from: https://pubs.asha.org University of Massachusetts on 41/27/2019, Terms of Use: https://pubs.asha.org/pubs/rights_and_permissions wh- questions (see Chomsky, 1986, and Radford, 1988, 3. Were any of the items on the story-based grammati- for a review on syntactic movement operation; see Coles, cal judgment tasks more difficult for child AAE 1998, for a review on a